Tag Archives: studio

Mess – various outlooks

Yesterday, writing about this quilt (which is evolving through various stages of ‘mess’), I erroneously typed that as I worked on it, it was becoming ‘less of a quilt’ (when I meant ‘less of a mess’). It makes me wonder, if it was becoming LESS of a quilt, what WOULD it be on its way to becoming?

I was surprised at how receptive the velvet was to my needle. Because I find velvet to be completely unruly at the machine, this was a nice surprise.

This image (one quilt on my lap; the other a WIP on the coffee table) shows you how favored fabrics like to show up again and again. Here I refer to the paisley-esque black, brown, burnt umber cotton from Indonesia. I wonder how many quilts it is in, exactly. It must be at least eight.

How many boxes (or piles or drawers or envelopes or bins) of ‘precious scraps’ do YOU have?

I honestly don’t want to know how many I have nestled, stacked and waiting downstairs!! Just like I really don’t want to know EXACTLY how many hours go into creating any given quilt.

Just as nations have favored statuses, so do many fabrics. That yellow batik, above, is one, as is the rayon shirt underneath. These upcycled garments have a way of lasting, lasting, lasting – like the magical pot of stew in the fairy tale. Just when I think I MUST have used the last scrap, another little swatch will surface (one of the better benefits, I might add, of a ‘loosely organized’ studio).

How often have we heard about some slob (from delicate appellation to all-out condemnation!) that they can ‘lay their hands immediately’ on whatever it is they need? Alas, I cannot. Sometimes this drags. You know, when I really want one of the gold spirals from an African print dress that I cut up and put who knows where?!! But the silver lining of a less-tended approach is what I’ll call (not euphemistically, mind) – the pleasures of the archeological dig.

Taking time regularly (this is key) to root around in one’s stacks, piles, stacks of piles – is a process of discovery that invariably yields treasure. I like to think that I put my hands on certain long forgotten half-cut or half-assembled scraps JUST as it is time to use it. This happens more often than I can tell.

While we are on the subject of ORGANIZATION, though, this being my birthday week, and the time that I thought I might reflect a little on last year (New Year’s did not turn out to be the time to do so) — let me say that 2011 was a turning point. I have a new hero whose name is Sandra Felton. She has written numerous books about people like me, people she affectionately and without judgment refers to as ‘the Messies’. Her tone is humorous and encourages acceptance. Her tips can work magic. Look her up.

There were many suggestions of hers that I implemented last year, but some of the most dramatic were: 1) organizing my closet by purchasing plastic hangars and ridding myself nearly completely of wire hangars; 2) organizing my clothes in that closet by color (an amazing time saver!!!); 3) upgrading containers in my closet from ugly, ill-fitting cardboard boxes to snazzy, bright green bins from The Christmas Tree shop; 4) purchasing containers for medical supplies (baking tins turned out to be the right size and price) and then organizing supplies by use (i.e. ‘travel supplies’, ‘cold and flu supplies’, ‘first aid’, and ‘muscle aches and pains’); and 5) making my bed. I have NEVER been a bedmaker, and now I am (it helps that my iPhone App ‘Tap & Track’ gives a caloric discount for ‘making the bed’ – I kid you not!!).

The other big thing I have done this year (this time I need to thank my office job of 2010/11), is to create a series of excel lists that I keep shortcuts to on my desktop, one of which is a HOUSEHOLD INVENTORY. You cannot believe what a helpful, time saver this is. When a major run of the “where’s my?”s occured in advance of a hiking trip for C. recently, I knew where EVERYTHING was!!

Have a great Sunday!! I will be making Buffalo Wings in a few hours and heading over to a neighbor’s for a SuperBowl Party… believe it or not, I can’t wait! No Tarot Readings by Madame Mallon in the kitchen this year! We will all be glued to the screen.

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Fabric notes:

teal tatter from Deb Lacativa – More Whiffs, Glimmers & Left Oeuvres

Black and blue rayon in foreground – recycle shirt; as is blue, gold, black silk on right edge

Black and white poly in right corner came from Silk Road in Auburndale, Mass.

to begin

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again. To begin again.

Studio shots remind me of how I’ve been away. I’ll post them as doorways and invitations. (All shot with phone, so a tad blurry).

Excerpt from a bulletin board — calling to mind the witch in the fairy tale who heats her oven to cook the children. And Venus. In a fugue state. These days? I am more witch than Venus.

Mirror mirror on the wall? TV is the screen I look in the most and oddly, there have been a raft of shows lately with Grim Reapers (‘Dead Like Me’ and ‘Grimm’) and mirrors on the wall and evil stepmothers (‘Once Upon a Time’). I plan to read fairy tales to gear up for the Sketchbook theme of ‘a path through the woods’ because fairy tales that enter the woods always have something intense and dramatic going on.

‘A path through the trees’ implies direction, even though one could be thoroughly lost.

The unfinished work. The idea of invitation rather than admonishment/burden/todolist…

Old friends.

New work.

Experimenting, again, with gesso, drawing on top of gesso, scraping away, cutting up bits, moving, rearranging, stitching inbetween most steps.

Tomorrow, I will burn some of the sandalwood in the cellar to clear out the dusty, stagnant air down there, and the heavy feeling in here (ribcage).

Heat Wave

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For any reader in the middle of a heat wave, like we are here in the Northeast, I offer this cool image.

In my fourth week of working full-time. Something about saying that, “working full-time”, and hearing the responses to my news (“Oh, you’ve gone back to work?”) have made me want to write somewhere a list of a few of the things that I accomplished while I was “not working”. It is disorienting to have crossed the divide between Stay-at-home-mom and Working-mother, and my guess is that the list is one of the ways I am trying to integrate the experience.

So, while not working, I:

Designed almost a dozen gardens and installed all but two of them;
Participated in Newton Open Studios four times (hosting three of those times) and partook in at least 15 craft shows — organizing PR for one of them;
Had a solo show at the Arsenal Center for the Arts;
Showed in the Quilter’s Connection show for 3 or 4 years, and helped hang the show two of those years and co-chaired PR the year before last;
Helped beautify the grounds at my local elementary school, including: planting a butterfly garden with second graders; soliciting a landscape contractor to donate three raised beds; advocating that the city make-good on a contractual obligation to replace plantings destroyed during a renovation; soliciting donations from two nurseries and Home Depot; organizing four NewtonServes; recruiting parents to build a tool shed; forming a committee to totally renovate the side yard where drainage was a severe problem & to that end — raised almost $300,000, acted as project coordinator working with six departments across the city over a period of two and half years; weeding with first graders; making salad and basil with first graders and kindergartners with greens and herbs that we planted together; helping to create several Earth Day celebrations; propagating plants on the grounds with fourth graders; and, and, and…
Made quilts for four elementary school teachers, incorporating art work of the students, and in one case, using fabric butterflies that second graders created in a workshop that I ran;
Served on Bowen School Council;
Served as Ass’t Treasurer for the kids’ preschool;
Virtually single-handedly advocated for our two boys during elementary and middle school to obtain proper testing and services for their learning disabilities, including obtaining private testing; getting the city to pay for one (pricey) intervention; hiring tutors; reviewing IEPs; attending meetings; following up with teachers; etc.
Taken the kids to virtually every doctor appointment (K. just learned where the pediatrician’s office is) — including two years when both boys were in braces;
Made paper with four year olds; made paper with 6 year olds;
Taught religious ed at the UU in West Newton for 5 months, made paper with them;
advocated for my sister, obtaining MaHealth, COBRA, SSI and SSDI and EAEDC — all this past winter and spring;
Edited over two dozen food articles for a Cooks Illustrated freelance contributor;
Settled two estates.

And then there were a couple of more official part-time jobs in there. And there was a lot more volunteering at the school — like staffing a table at the Harvest Fair or serving as room parent or helping on the day the kids made Wampanoag crafts.

So, am I “going back to work”? I don’t think so. It’s more like I’m working regular hours for a regular pay check now.

As for how that’s going? Hmmmmmmmmm. The paycheck part is pretty great. The people are super nice. But, if I had tried to come up with an arrangement for letting go of ego, I couldn’t have done much better. Doing all those peon jobs (e.g., standing at a copier, filling out forms, typing, scanning documents) when I have a law degree is humbling. And then fucking up at doing the peon jobs as I learn, is even more so. It’s one thing, I’ve discovered, to have ‘given up’ any feelings of pride or accomplishment about having gotten a JD when I’m making quilts. It’s quite ANOTHER thing when I am in an office working as a paralegal.

Part of me is feeling out and out punished for having taken the time to raise my family. Part of me is inclined to bow down and kiss the ground, grateful to have gotten a job — (yes, I’ll use these tired words) — in this economy. And the truth is, I wouldn’t be able to hack the substantive part yet, anyway — so I’m experimenting with the idea that this is a good thing that came along at just the right time.

I have not been in the studio ONCE in the last three and a half weeks, however, and THAT cannot continue, or I certainly will not be able to believe that this is a good thing that came along at just the right time.

Heirloom Poppies

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heirloom doily for a pillow

This week’s pillow commission required extreme care. It required symmetry and therefore measuring. It required keeping fabric that wanted to crinkle, flat. It required being able to FIND the doily. My iron had to be pristine at all times.

Hole before -- muslin scrap slipped under, no glue

There was one minor flaw in the doily — the round hole shown above. It wasn’t that noticeable until one placed the doily on the coral-colored silk, and then it was VERY noticeable. I didn’t want to use a glue-product like WonderUnder to adhere a teeny piece of muslin under the hole, so I stitched it carefully — without turning under the edges because that would have required enlarging the hole.

Hole after -- edges left raw to minimize size of tear

Long ago, I learned that white-glove production is not for me. Professional curtain-making was a casualty of this recognition. I tried it briefly. Loved the design challenges, fabric selections, and money, but couldn’t stand the sweat and worry. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you haven’t seen what schmutz on an iron can do to a fully-assembled white linen Roman shade — in about four seconds.

Exquisite embroidery -- tough to iron flat near its contours

I am hoping that my small quilting stitches don’t detract too much from the beautiful embroidery of the poppy.

Light quilting to anchor doily to silk

The process of working on this pillow has heightened my appreciation for working congruently… working in a style, palette, and scale that is in accord with one’s basic wiring and temperament.

For instance, do you plan or jump in and clean up your messes afterwards? Are you a designer who makes sketches or who doesn’t? And if you do, are those sketches made prior to taking a stitch and/or during construction? Do crooked lines bother you? Do straight lines?

What do you do if you are an improv quilter and suddenly must meet specific demands imposed by a commission? (this week’s rub, for me). And, given your basic disposition, how do you tolerate being on a learning curve?

Coral-colored silk a winner with the poppies

There are fiber artists out there, by the way, doing unbelievably beautiful things with antique linens. For an exquisite use of heirloom cloth, please visit Kaye Turner’s blog.

Yesterday, when I finally got back to ‘doing what I love’, I found myself stymied again, because this huge Global Warming quilt will not let itself be resolved.

Iteration 735! Horizon re-emerging

Pitbullish about its size, I am resisting the temptation to break it into smaller pieces. I could easily create four smaller quilts. It keeps morphing this way and that and I truly can’t tell if it’s getting closer to resolution or not. Last night I lay in bed counting on my fingers how many BED SIZED simple geometric quilts I could have made with the time I’ve spent on this.

What I have decided therefore, is, to piece it up in its unresolved state and then to ‘paint’ with applique to bring the thing into harmony.